Love Is Patient Romance Collection

by Vetsch, Erica; McDonough, Vickie; Barton, Janet Lee

  She arched her eyebrows and he half-expected her to argue, but she nodded. “All right. I’ll concede that you know the area better than I.”

  Forty-five minutes later the wagon rounded the curve of a hill, bringing into view a little pristine lake reflecting several burr oaks along the water’s edge.

  “What a beautiful spot.” It was the first time he’d seen her smile since he’d told her about Vater’s letters. Hank’s heart pinched. How he wished she’d smiled in response to his proposal.

  He set the brake and aided her down from the wagon seat. The children clambered off the tailgate and began an impromptu game of tag.

  Hank cast an eye to the west. A few white puffy clouds gathered on the horizon. He hoped rain wouldn’t ruin their outing. “I’ll be back to pick you up around three.”

  “Thank you, Hank.” Her hazel eyes fixed him in place. “It was kind of you.”

  Why did he get the distinct feeling she wasn’t talking about driving them to their picnic?

  Chapter 10

  Hank pushed the plane along the edge of a cedar plank, producing thin curls that reminded him of the tendrils of hair that fell around Amelia’s ears. He closed his eyes and invited her image to grace his musings. Her soft voice echoed in his memory.

  Perhaps this afternoon—what would he say to her? How should he broach the subject? Certainly he owed her an apology for the tactless way he’d spluttered out his proposal.

  He couldn’t fault Amelia’s statement. A real marriage needed a foundation much stronger than good intentions. Giving the children a home was a fine thing, but he should have told her first how much he loved her. He reckoned most women wanted to be courted and romanced. There just wasn’t time. He prayed God would prepare Amelia’s heart to hear what he wanted to tell her.

  “God, if You’ll give me another chance to say it right, and if Amelia says yes, I’ll romance her for the rest of my life. Order my words, Lord, so she’ll know she’s loved.”

  A rumble of thunder interrupted his prayer. Muted, murky light replaced the earlier sunlight. He poked his head out the door. What happened to the bluebonnet sky and cottony clouds? Angry greenish-gray mounds churned across the sky where the sun should have been. Ominous swirls billowed in from the northwest.

  Alarm clenched his stomach and a chill sliced through him. He grabbed his jacket and jogged to the backyard where the horses stamped and snorted in nervous agitation. His fingers flew through the task of hitching the animals to the wagon. The team tossed their heads and whinnied as Hank leapt into the wagon seat. He released the brake and blew a piercing whistle through his teeth, slapping the reins down hard. The horses lurched forward.

  “Lord, please protect Amelia and the children until I can get there.”

  He turned onto the street and met Emil Lange, the father of one of Amelia’s students, coming the opposite direction.

  “Emil, follow me! I’m going out to get the children. This storm is coming up mighty fast.”

  The man nodded his head. “Lead the way.”

  Before Hank reached the edge of town, he heard a sickening shout.

  “Twister!”

  Hank rose up from the seat and hollered at the horses. “Giddyap. Go!” He slung the ends of the reins down across the animals. He didn’t know if Emil still followed behind him. He focused solely on Amelia and the children.

  The sky unleashed driving rain and crashing thunder. “Oh God, please hedge them about with Your mighty hands.” He urged the team on and shouted above the tempest. “Lord Jesus, You spoke peace and the storm stilled. You walked on the water. Overpower this storm with Your might. Protect them, Lord.”

  He struggled against the buffeting wind to remain in the wagon and the horses slowed to a nervous, high-stepping trot, shying in their traces. Hank forced them forward. “Go! Go!”

  Lightning slashed across the sky accompanied by immediate explosions of thunder, shaking the very ground over which he traveled. Air pressure nearly burst his eardrums. Bits of hail now pelted his face, and the wind and rain so hampered his visibility, all he could do was pray he was headed in the right direction.

  “Guide me, Lord. Cover Amelia and the children with Your hand and lead me to them.” His voice broke as he cried out his gut-wrenching plea. “Oh God, please protect them.”

  The wind slowed and the rain diminished enough for him to see and he pushed the team to pick up their pace. Thunder rolled through the hills in the wake of the storm.

  Broken limbs and uprooted trees littered the landscape. Hank’s heart hammered and his lungs heaved in their effort to draw breath. Water dripped from his hair and saturated clothing.

  A child’s bonnet swung from the ripped branches of a scrub pine. A lunch pail sat upside down in the dirt. One of the quilts Amelia had stacked in the back of the wagon wrapped around the twisted trunk of a mesquite.

  His heart in his throat, Hank hauled on the reins and pulled the team to a stop. He jammed the brake lever forward and leapt from the wagon, running through the now-soft rain, shouting Amelia’s name.

  “Amelia! Where are you?”

  Small heads poked upright from a gulley along the base of the hillside.

  Elsie and Joy screamed in unison. “Uncle Hank!”

  Hank charged in the direction of the children. Others now raised their heads, some crying, some simply staring wide-eyed. A few of the older students comforted the younger ones. Micah scrambled to his feet and launched himself into Hank’s arms, sobbing.

  “Uncle Hank, I was scared. The wind roared real loud and it almost blowed us away.” He looked down at himself and his cries intensified. “The shirt Miss Bachman gived me is all wet and dirty.”

  “It’s all right, buddy. That was a bad storm, but it’s gone now.” Hank squeezed Micah, but his glance bounced wildly about. “Where is Miss Bachman?”

  Elsie’s panicked voice reached him. “Uncle Hank, Miss Bachman won’t wake up.”

  He lowered Micah to the ground and ran down the slope where Elsie and Joy sat on either side of Amelia. A violent shudder rattled through him when he caught sight of her motionless form. Bits of leaves and grass clung to her and the stains on her dress testified that she’d crawled through the mud, presumably trying to protect the children.

  Hank knelt and brushed tangled hair and debris from her face. “Amelia. Amelia, open your eyes. It’s Hank. The storm is over.”

  The children crowded around their teacher, begging Hank to make her wake up. Behind him, Hank heard the other wagon pull up, and some of the children ran to meet Paeter Lange’s father, but Hank remained in place patting Amelia’s face. He slid his fingers around the back of her neck, searching for injury. Inch by inch, his hand traveled upward until he located a large lump on the back of her head. Ever so gently, he parted her hair and found matted blood.

  “Der kinder seem to be all right.” Emil jogged down the slope, his belly heaving with exertion. “Miss Bachman, she is—”

  “She’s unconscious.” Hank’s throat was so tight he could barely push the words out. He indicated the back of her head, and Emil bent to look.

  “Ja, she got pretty bad goose egg.”

  Hank rose. “Let’s put her in the back of my wagon. Elsie, see if you can find one of the quilts from the picnic.” The little girl ran to do as Hank bid her and Hank turned to Emil.

  “Can you take the children back to town?”

  Emil bobbed his head. “Ja, I make sure they all get home safe.” He paused a moment. “My Paeter, he say Miss Bachman told all der kinner to lay flat, and she keep them down.” His voice turned husky. “She save their lives, ja?”

  Indeed, when Hank came up on the scene, all the children were in the safest possible place in the gulley at the base of the hill. “I believe so.”

  “Uncle Hank.” Elsie called to him. “I found a quilt, but it’s wet and dirty.”

  “That’s all right.” He instructed her to spread it in the back of the wagon.

  While Emi
l gathered the rest of the children and directed them to his wagon, Hank slid his arms beneath Amelia’s shoulders and knees, lifting her as if she were made of fragile porcelain. She didn’t stir. He carried her to the wagon and laid her gently on the soggy quilt.

  He let his fingertips stroke her cheekbone momentarily before securing the tailgate.

  God, please let her be all right.

  “Uncle Hank, is Miss Bachman gonna die like my mama?”

  Hank jerked his startled gaze around to see Elsie, Joy, and Micah standing behind him. He knelt and gathered the children close.

  “She just has a bump on her head. We’re going to pray and ask God to make her better.”

  Tears filled Elsie’s eyes. “But I prayed for Mama and Papa to get better and they didn’t.”

  Elsie’s statement slammed into Hank with a force so intense, he lost his breath for a moment, and his heart ripped in two. How could he make promises to these children he wasn’t sure he could keep? They’d already endured much more pain than children ought.

  “You three go with Mr. Lange. I’m going to take Miss Bachman to Dr. Keidel.”

  He hugged each one and nudged them toward Emil’s wagon. “Go on, now.”

  With his heart bleeding for the youngsters and fearful for Amelia, Hank climbed up and whistled to the team, steering them back around toward town.

  He held the horses to a less reckless pace, not wanting to jar Amelia any more than necessary. He glanced at her over his shoulder every few minutes, longing to see her eyes flutter open, but they didn’t.

  Hank lifted his voice to heaven’s throne. “Please, God, let her be all right.” He repeated the prayer until he pulled up at the doctor’s office in town. A small crowd gathered as he gently lifted Amelia into his arms and carried her inside.

  Quiet voices pierced through the dull ache in Amelia’s head. Fragments of memory slowly came together: the children, the swirling storm clouds, the wind … She forced her eyes open despite the pain and she struggled to sit up. Her vision swam and blurred.

  “Whoa there, where do you think you’re going, young lady?”

  “The children—”

  “Are safe, thanks to you.”

  The voice was familiar but the cobwebs in her head prevented recognition. She lay back down and rubbed her eyes. Gradually the face in front of her came into focus.

  “Uncle Will?”

  Her favorite uncle grinned at her. “It’s me. Thought I’d surprise you by coming a couple of weeks early, and you surprised me by being my first patient.”

  Confusion still spun in her brain. “But when—”

  “I arrived on the stage this morning just ahead of the storm. The man at the depot told me the schoolmarm and students were on a picnic today.” He leaned closer. “Amelia honey, don’t you know you’re supposed to pick a sunny day for a picnic?”

  The regular town doctor leaned over Uncle Will’s shoulder. “Miss Bachman, I’m Dr. Keidel. You gave us a bit of a scare. You have a concussion, but you’re going to be all right.”

  She looked from one to the other. “You’re sure the children are all right?”

  “They’re just fine,” Dr. Keidel said. “But you have a very impatient visitor waiting to see you.”

  Uncle Will winked at her. “I’ll bring him in.” He shook his finger at her. “But you have to promise to lie still.” He followed Dr. Keidel out of the room.

  A moment later Hank slipped in. The sight of him set her pulse to dancing. He closed the distance between them in four long strides. The lines across his brow softened as he reached her side. He picked up her hand and held it between both of his own.

  “Amelia.” His breathless whisper was bathed in relief. “Praise God you’re all right.”

  Hank’s nearness coupled with the warmth of his hands enveloping hers drew a perception of safety over her. A tiny smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “I am now.”

  Air whooshed from Hank’s lips in a deep-throated chuckle. He lifted her hand to his lips.

  Her breath caught when he placed his gentle kiss on her fingers. An apologetic prayer formed in her heart, recanting the times she’d asked God to take away her growing feelings for this man. She understood now why God hadn’t granted what she thought she wanted.

  His eyes glistened. “I begged God for another chance to do this right because I bungled it the first time.”

  Still holding her hand, he lowered himself to one knee. “Amelia Bachman, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, not just because of the way you love the children, but because of the way I love you. Will you marry me?”

  Epilogue

  Amelia straightened Joy’s hair ribbons and smoothed Elsie’s dress, while Hank tucked in Micah’s shirt. Pastor Hoffman waited patiently in the gazebo Hank had built in the middle of the field of wildflowers.

  The preacher grinned. “It’s not every day I get to marry an entire family.”

  Amelia’s bouquet of bluebonnets, daisies, and white dogtooth lilies trembled slightly in anticipation. Her foolish declaration of becoming a teacher so she could remain single echoed in her ears. How silly she’d been to try to limit God. She never dreamed being a teacher would lead her to three precious children and a fine, godly husband who loved her.

  Pastor Hoffman smiled as the five of them stepped into the gazebo. Elsie and Joy, the bridesmaids, stood to Amelia’s left, and Micah, the best man, stood to Hank’s right.

  “This gazebo is Hank’s wedding gift to Amelia,” the pastor announced to all the assembled townsfolk. “The stone foundation is indicative of the faith we have in Jesus Christ.” He gestured to the gleaming white gingerbread trim adorning the uprights. “This structure reminds us of how beautiful love is—God’s love to us and our love for each other.”

  Hank smiled down at Amelia and her heart turned over.

  Pastor Hoffman continued. “Finally the roof represents the canopy of God’s faithfulness, always sheltering us from the storms of life.”

  Hank took both Amelia’s hands in his and they repeated the ageless vows, pledging themselves to one another and to God. At the pastor’s prompting, Hank bent his head toward Amelia’s. He paused, an inch away from her lips.

  “I love you, Amelia Zimmermann.”

  CONNIE STEVENS

  Connie Stevens lives with her husband of forty-plus years in north Georgia, within sight of her beloved mountains. She and her husband are both active in a variety of ministries at their church. A lifelong reader, Connie began creating stories by the time she was ten. Her office manager and writing muse is a cat, but she’s never more than a phone call or email away from her critique partners. She enjoys gardening and quilting, but one of her favorite pastimes is browsing antique shops where story ideas often take root in her imagination. Connie has been a member of American Christian Fiction Writers since 2000.